Blues and the Mississippi Flood of 1927 Part 5 Mounds Landing

The Mississippi River could no longer be contained as even the vaunted federal levees started to fail. 
The nation as a whole though would not fully take notice of this unfolding disaster until the events at the Mounds Landing levee on the morning of the 21st of April 1927. As the destruction unleashed at this sight would prove to be impossible to ignore

Ad free version available through Patreon subscription. Available on Spotify and through podcast aps that use RSS feeds. For more information:
https://www.patreon.com/distortedhistory




Please Rate and Review the podcast
To contact me:
Email: [e-mail]
Twitter @DistortedHistor https://twitter.com/DistortedHistor
Bluesky @distortedhistory.bsky.social
If you would like to support the podcast: ko-fi.com/distortedhistory

Ad free version available through Patreon subscription. Available on Spotify and through podcast aps that use RSS feeds. For more information:
https://www.patreon.com/distortedhistory




Please Rate and Review the podcast
To contact me:
Email: [e-mail]
Twitter @DistortedHistor https://twitter.com/DistortedHistor
Bluesky @distortedhistory.bsky.social
If you would like to support the podcast: ko-fi.com/distortedhistory

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Aric Gaskell, and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast. And Rob I didn't give you many names,
and joy a blunder. Look, I'm Raisling. I'n got the

(00:24):
ra A long struggle for freedom. It really is a
revolution when last we left her tail the Mississippi flood
of nineteen twenty seven and its effect on the Blues,
the first of the vaunted federal levees, despite all their

(00:45):
engineering and the claims of the Mississippi River Commission, had
failed on the sixteenth of April, and Arena, Missouri. As
it did, the water burst through the levee with so
much power that had not only double trees, but it
also swept away buildings as it went on. The flood
some one hundred and seven five acres of land. Now,
the news of the levees failing was both ominous and
surprisingly hopeful. It was ominous in the fact that the

(01:07):
levees were not as full proof as the Mississippi River
Commission had promised, which meant it was potentially only a
matter of time before the levees that people were depending
upon to protect their homes, their families, and their communities
also failed to try and prevent such a disaster from
happening to their towns. Up and down the Mississippi, white
cops are sent into black neighborhoods where they started arresting

(01:28):
African American men off the street for no other reason
than they needed strong backs to fill carrying stacks sandbags
at the levee. These black men were then effectively given
no choice but to put their bodies and lives on
the line in service of protecting white communities. At the
same time that this desperate struggle was taking place, the
slim bit of hope was that your levee did not
have to last forever. It just had to last longer

(01:50):
than those in other areas. You know that old joke
or quip or whatever you want to call it, Well,
you don't have to run faster than any bear chasing you.
You just have to be faster than the other person
you're with. While the same applies here. Your levee didn't
have to last forever. It just had to hold out
long enough that the failure of other levees effectively reduced
the water pressing against your levee, and you would be fine.

(02:12):
The reality that we'll see any later episode that new
Orleans very much subscribed to and were unwilling to take
any chances with now. While no other towns went to
the extremes that New Orleans did, the reality in Greenville,
Mississippi was when they learned that another levee fell near
Pine Bluff, Arkansas, funding some one hundred and fifty acres.
It honestly wasn't the worst news in the world, as

(02:32):
that where at least would not be attacking their levee.
The nineteenth of April also brought more news of a
similar complicated character, as he levee in New Madrid, Missouri failed,
doing so in spectacular fashion, as he forced the water
was so much that it carved out a mile wide
gap in the levee before funding over a million acres
of Missouri in Arkansas. Yet, for as dramatic and destructive

(02:53):
as the levee failure in New Madrid, was the Arkansas River,
which would ultimately feed into the overflowing Mississippi River, was
still terrified to behold. Indeed, they flow the Arkansas River
was so powerful at this point due to so much
water flowing through the system, that it had started tearing
away at the pillars that supported the Missouri Pacific Railroad
Bridge and Little Rock. Recognizing this, some engineers drove an

(03:15):
engine and twenty one call cars out onto the bridge, hoping,
as they did, that the additional mess would help the
bridge with stand the forces pressing against it. They did not,
as instead the bridge was ripped away by the river,
with the call cars only making the scene all that
much more germanic as steam rose up from the wreckage
of the bridge as the winter collided with the Colinet

(03:35):
cars that had apparently combusted thanks to the frantic shaking
that head precluded the bridge's ultimate collapse, which is to
say that even with the levee failures lessening the flow somewhat,
there was no reason to believe that the danger had
passed in any way whatsoever, plas the rain was still falling,
causing the rivers to rise higher than ever before. Indeed,
the nineteenth of April sawstorm so powerfully spawned tornadoes across

(03:59):
the western state that killed thirty one. These storms the
following day then moved into the Lower Mississippi region, where
they dumped even more rain into the already inundated area.
This disaster then was far from over, But before we
get into scenes of destruction so great that the rest
of the nation had to take notice and do something first.
Like always, I want to acknowledge my sources for this series,

(04:21):
which include Richard M his own Junior's Backwinter Bluesy Mississippi
Flood of nineteen twenty seven in the African American Imagination,
John M. Berry's Rising Tied the Great Mississippi Flood of
nineteen twenty seven and How it changed America, and Susan
Scott Perishes the Flood Year nineteen twenty seven a cultural history.
And like always, a full list of these and any

(04:42):
other sources like websites that I used, will be available
on this podcast Blue Sky and Cofee pages. Plus for
anyone who doesn't like to be bothered skipping through commercials,
there is always an ad free feed available to subscribers
at patreon dot com slash Distorted History. And with all
that being said, let's begin not far below where the
now terrifying Arkansas River joined with the Mississippi, and just

(05:04):
below the Cypress Creek outlet had been closed off set
a location known as Mounds Landing, a location that, even
under the best of circumstances, would stress the structural integrity
of a levee, as it was a location where the
river took a ninety degree bend after running straight for
several miles, thereby allowing the river to pick up speed.
This meant that the current here was both powerful and chaotic,

(05:25):
as it swirled and smashed against the levee with considerable power,
power that was now only increased thanks to the massive
amounts of water being dumped into the Mississippi via the
nearby Arkansas River and because he seemwater had no place
to escape to thanks to the genius of the Mississippi
River Commission, which is all to say that the Mounds
Landing levee was especially vulnerable. So to shine and bolst

(05:47):
of this barrier, predominantly black laborers, who had likely been
given no choice in the matter, worked fiercely amidst frigid,
windblown rain, filling carrying and stacking sandbags on top of
sand bags and layers, with each layer effectively raised in
the height of the levee by six inches, as they
desperately tried to match the red of the rising wooters,
even as the waves were already crashing against the levee

(06:08):
and washing over the top. However, this race against the
rising woters was far from their only concern, as by
the early morning hours of the twenty first of April,
water was spotted seeping through the levee itself, while there
were also reports of a sand boil erupting in a
geyser of water as thick as a man's leg. It
was then becoming increasingly clear that they weren't losing this fight,

(06:29):
something that was only confirmed when at six point thirty
in the morning word went out that there had been
a small break in the levee. Lieutenant E. C. Sanders,
who was in charge of the National Guard contingent at
the levee, responded to this emergency by heading to a
nearby plantation to quote unquote arouse the labor, being his
first inclination when searching for men to do hard, physical,
demanding labor was to go straight to a plantation to

(06:51):
force the people there to do the work, which likely
tells you a lot about where those individuals already laboring
on the levee had likely come from. Looking oh, those individuals,
along with the recently impressed sharecroppers from the plantation, were
all someone to where the small break in the levee
had occurred. By the time they arrived, however, things had
already gotten worse. Indeed, according to Lieutenant Sanders quote, the

(07:13):
Negroes ran to the break also, but as they robbed
as soon became to moralized and ran away. It then
became necessary for the civilian foremen and my detachment to
force the Negroes to the break at the point of guns.
These black men that were forced to at gunpoint risked
their lives as they filled and through sandbags into the
breach and the levee, hoping to stem the flow. However,

(07:34):
the water gushing through this gap was so powerful it
would just blast the sandbags back at again. Yet still
these men continued to work because they really had no
other choice, while with the armed white men aiming guns
at them. The scene, though, changed when the levee itself
began to shake and rubble underneath their feet as the
gap suddenly expanded. It was clear in that moment then

(07:54):
that the fight to save the levee was over, as
in that moment, men, regardless of the guns pointed out
at them, started yelling at the top of their lungs,
wanting others to run and get off the levee because
it was about to break literal alarm bells began ringing
throughout the district, as did church bells, the fire whistle
on nearby in Greenville, as well as the whistles in
every mill in the area. Everyone who heard this cacophony

(08:17):
knew what it meant, and so they either fled or
braced for what was to come. The Mounds Landing levee
finally gave way at eight a m. On the morning
on the twenty first of April. Now, floods are typically
slow moving disasters, lacking in big, dramatic moments, as they
are almost by definition, the slow and next mole rising
of waters beyond its usual confines. The nineteen twenty seven flood, though,

(08:39):
would have a few notable exceptions to this general rule,
moments when the Mississippi not just overwhelming levies meant to
contain its wooters, but broke through them. These breakthroughs, also
called crevasses, were oftentimes moments of massive destruction. This was
yet another consequence of relying solely upon levees, as when
the water pressure was such that it forced these barriers

(08:59):
to fail, the result could be downright explosive, as it
was essentially like a damn failing Indeed, according to the
people who were there, when the mounds landing levee finally
gave way, it sounded like a bomb going off. The
force of this water as it came waring through the
gap then tore trees out of the ground, absolutely shattered
the thin shacks that sharecroppers lived in, while also carrying

(09:19):
away more substantial houses and barns. People too, were swept
away by the flood waters. Some who were wood managed
to cling onto trees or onto rooftops as they swept past,
while other shelter wherever they could from the waters, like
for example, one family who took shelter in a box
car before they continued rising of the waters forced them
to move up onto the roof of the car. Now,

(09:40):
the Red Cross would officially list only two deaths as
being caused by this crevase. However, it's widely believed that
the deaths of African Americans were massively underreported throughout the
course of this disaster. For example, unofficial estimates believed that
somewhere between one hundred to several hundred African Americans who
had been working on the levee had died that day
as a result of the collect Ultimately, an area fifty

(10:02):
miles wide to one hundred miles long would be flooded
by water that in some places was twenty feet deep. Indeed,
houses seventy five miles away in Yazoo City would be
submerged by water that came from the Mounds Landing breakthrough.
In all, over one hundred and eighty five thousand people
would be affected by the flood, sixty nine thousand of
whom would end up living in Red Cross refugee camps

(10:22):
for up to five months, a situation that, as we
will come to see, was wrought with its own issues. We, however,
will not be diving fully into that situation for several
episodes to come. In the meantime, let us return to
Lennie Johnson, who we discussed in Some Death last episode,
as he had written two songs in relation to the
nineteen twenty seven Mississippi flood. In both he looked to

(10:43):
convey the experiences of the people affected by these relentless waters.
For example, the aforementioned Broken Levee Blues, the song in
which Johnson's protagonists resisted when the police attempted to force
them work on the levees. The protagonist did so despite
a song very much being at risk, as he sings, quote,
the water was all around my windows and back and
all up in my door. Still though, he would refuse

(11:06):
to be essentially enslaved to work on the levees because quote,
I'd rather leave my home because I can't live there
no more. Meanwhile, Lonnie Johnson's other song about the flood,
Southbound Wutter, was even more focused on the experiences of
the people whose entire lives were upended and destroyed by
the flood. In fact, it was very likely inspired by
the Mounds Lighting disaster, as he would record the song

(11:27):
just four days after the event took place. Lonnie's main
goal on this song then seems to be capturing the
plight of the people who suffered through these storms, as
he sings, quote, through the dreadful nights, I stood no
place to lay my head, what are above my knee?
And the world had taken my bed. You'll in particular
note how on that last line he blames the world
for tiking his bed. This separates Southbound Water from Broken

(11:49):
Levee Blues, the song he wouldn't record a year later,
in which he addresses the additional white opression that black
people had to deal with on top of the flood.
This song then has no human antagonists, instead of sty
whether the river, the flood, and more specifically, the water
that was the cause of his misery. As he sings quote,
water was rolling down the valley just like a thunderstorm

(12:10):
washed my little valley house away. There's no place I
can call home. Southbound water then is purely focused upon
the flood and how it was destroying lies. People's lives
then were completely upended, as what little they owned and
even their very homes were just taken away from them
and in some cases just straight up washed away. Just

(13:01):
twenty miles to the south and east of Mountains Landings
at Greenville, Mississippi, a city with a population of fifteen
thousand residents. Greenville was a center of commerce. Its docks
were frequently covered in goods being honor offloaded onto barges
traveling up and down the river. It was also home
to four oil mills, a half dozen sawmills, warehouses full
of cotton, and three connex changes where cotton was traded

(13:23):
and its price was set. The city was also striving
toward modernization with its twelve miles of paved streets, while
it also looked to become a center of entertainment and
culture with its bowling alleys, pool halls, movie theaters, in
twenty four hour coffee shops. Not to mention, was also
home to one French and two Italian restaurants, as well
as the People's Theater and even an opera house. Greenville

(13:43):
was even the home of Mississippi's finest hotel, the four
story Kowana Hotel. It was for these reasons, then, that
Greenville would be dubbed the Queen City of the Delta.
As you might expect, then, such an important city had
ample protection from a disaster like this one, as Greenville
had not one but two levees, one to shield it
from the river and another to protect it from potential

(14:03):
flooding that might result from breakthroughs like the one in
Mounds Landing, a levee which previously might have been an
afterthought but was suddenly of utmost importance, Which brings us
to another important piece of information about the city, and
one that would play roll in how things transpired from
here on out, and that is the fact that more
than half of Greenville's population was black. Now, while there
was predictably a sizeable black working class population. There were

(14:26):
also black doctors and dentists, a black printer, a black
owned newstand in black funeral homes, who all servicing needs
of Greenville's African American residents, who basically all lived into
neighborhoods in which there were juke joints in pool halls
where blues musicians would play. Importantly, this was also the
Jim Crow era of separate but quote unquote equal, an

(14:47):
equality that took the former Greenville School spending eighty five
dollars per white student and only seventeen dollars per every
black student. Given this reality in the way that we know,
labor was acquired for efforts to reinforce other levees along
the mississipp it should come as no surprise that it
was Greenville's African American population who were put to work
raising and supporting the city secondary levee that was there

(15:08):
to protect the city from flooding caused by a breakthrough
elsewhere along the river. Now, hundreds of black men had
already been sent to work on this rear protection levee
even before the disaster at Mounds Landing. Yet, in the
face of such a calamity. As soon as news broke
about what had happened at Mounds Landing, comps began actively
rounding up hundreds of additional black men, who they then
forced to work on the levees. In doing so, the

(15:30):
authorities attempted to make it look a little less like
savory by paying the workers. However, in exchange for this
tortuously hard labor, these African American men were paid less
money than they would have gone for picking cotton. This
rear levee, however, even with all this additional labor, would
prove ill suited for the task at hand. As you see,
while the main federal levees holding back the river itself

(15:52):
for two to three stories high, this secondary levee, protecting
Greenville from breakthroughs at other points along the river, was
only about eight feet high, which, to be fair, likely
would have been enough under normal circumstances. But this was
anything but a normal disaster. Indeed, as the water from
the Mounds Landing breakthrough came rushing towards Greenville and resembled
a quote unquote ocean wave according to eyewitnesses, then as

(16:15):
this advancing wall of water crashed against a levee, wave
shot some twelve to fifteen feet into the air and
amount which, to be clear, is greater than eight feet.
These waves then easily came over the top of the levee,
and in doing so swept away these sandbags that were
hurriedly being stacked on top of the mound of earth.
The waves, though, quickly became the lease of their concerns,
as the water level in the lands outside the city

(16:37):
was soon eight feet deep, matching the height of the levee,
and it was also obvious that stone more was coming.
At this a number of the men who had been
working on the levee flood as this situation was clearly hopeless. However,
some others, including one levee Chappelle, a leader within the
black community, were forced to keep working at gunpoint. It soon, though,
became apparent that there would be no saving this levee,

(16:59):
and so so as it began to collapse, and would
be Chappelle who shout it for everyone to run for
their lives. Fire whistles and church balls all around Greenville
began to sound at three ten in the morning, alerting
residence that this measure of protection had given way. Many
people then frantically fled their homes as they rushed to
places like churches, commercial buildings, downtown, the courthouse, and city hall,

(17:21):
while still others rushed to the federal levee abudding the
Mississippi itself as it was by definition stole dry land
because it had not failed. Meanwhile, as the water from
the breakthrough in Mounds Landing created a gap in Greenville
secondary levee, the results were violent and destructive, with the
Black section of towns suffering the worst of it because
and of course sound lower than the other parts of Greenville,

(17:42):
and so it was quickly submerged under fifteen feet of water. Meanwhile,
a downtown wasn't exactly spared either, as it too was
soon fudded with ten feet of water, then also carried
with it chicken coops, the bodies of drowned mules and cows,
as well as oil attacks in the nearby standard oil
storage facility. This massive influx so water would turn Greenville
streets into violent rapids for weeks to come, as seemingly

(18:04):
each street had its own powerful current that then clashed
at every intersection. It was then only the wealthiest neighborhoods
that were spared, as they were naturally built on higher ground,
and most then these neighborhoods only ended up having a
bounty foot of water in their streets that usually did
not even reach the front doors of most of the houses. Greenville, then,
despite being the queen city of the Delta, would suffer

(18:26):
these seeing fate as the rest of the region. As
from that singular breakthrough in Mounds Landing, the water spread
out some sixty miles to the east and ninety miles
to the south, creating what was effectively an inland sea.
More important than the land though, was to fact that
this disaster affected tens of thousands of people, some of
whom found themselves stranded and waiting for rescue as they
were surrounded by water. Wherever these people were, though, they

(18:49):
likely weren't dry or warm, as these storms that had
caused all of this just kept coming, bringing even more
rain and keeping the temperatures unusually low. Plus the winds
that accompany these storms didn't help matters much either, as
they only served to store up the waters of this
new inland sea, making them even more dangerous. In the
immediate aftermath of this unprecedented disaster, then, the first thing

(19:11):
that needed to be done was to rescue the people
who were now trapped in these untenable situations. To do that, though,
boats were needed and there weren't exactly a lot available
in the area. In Greenville, for example, there were only
thirty five flat bottomed boats and a few skiffs, which
was nowhere near enough to deal with the disaster of
this size and scope. The biggest thing they were lacking
those outboard motors, as only six existed in Greenville, while

(19:34):
in the rest of the doubt that they were of
anything even more rare. A number of the owners on
these boats apparently recognized their importance and quickly set to
work doing what they could, while in some cases other
individuals who were willing to take on this dangerous but
necessary work come anddeered these boats from their owners, although
it has to be said that the best of the
boats in the region, the fastest and best maintained crafts,

(19:56):
actually belonged to bootleggers, and it was oftentimes than these
q unquote criminals who raced out independent of any organization
to rescue those in need. Meanwhile, another significant source of
aid came from professional fishermen living in Gulf coast towns,
as some one hundred and twenty of them shipped their
boats by train to the flooded region so they could
be deployed there to assist in rescue efforts. Meanwhile, the

(20:19):
so called river rats, men who lived on houseboats and
survived by fishing and trapping, men who likely were pretty
low down on the social ladder in most circumstances, were
also among those who rushed to aid the victims of
the flood waters. Also among those who, of their own accord,
chose to rush to the aid of those in need
was a bond salesman who worn'd at the Whitney Bank
of New Orleans named Hunter kimbro When news broke about

(20:41):
the events in Mountains Landing in Greenville, Hunter asked his
bosses to be granted permission to leave worked to go
help in the aid effort. He was then not only
granted permission to leave, but the clearing House Association also
gave hundred three thousand dollars to aid in his efforts.
It was then with this money that Hunter purchased a
pair of outboard which he then shipped by train along

(21:02):
with himself up to Vicksburg, from where he took a
steamboat to Greenville. Once in Greenville, Hunter found a large
steelhuled government boat. Then he lifted over the levee and
set to work, as he would spend the next ten
days to reverse in the flooded fields in the region,
rescuing people in that boat. Then there was Herman kelli Went,
a resident of Greenville who worked for the Army Corps

(21:22):
of Engineers. Herman responded to the flood by ringing up
a Foign Modelt engine so it could power a twenty
two foot boat, which he used to cruise about the
flooded region rescuing people, while also tugging another twenty two
foot boat along behind him for extra space. Now, Herman
was not always successful. For example, in one of his expeditions,
he spotted a family of seven on a house that

(21:43):
was being taken away by the currents. Herman immediately sent off,
racing after them as fast as jerry rigged boats could
carry him. Yet, even as he was in hot pursuit,
the house that the family was z on began to descindigrate,
dumping all seven of them in the waters. Now, Herman
was just one hundred yards away when this happened, but
no matter how much he searched, he never saw a
single soul emerge from that wreckage. Yet while such moments

(22:06):
of coming up short would haunt the Cajun man, the
fact of the matter was he still managed to save
some one hundred and fifty people in the span of
three days as he worked almost non stop. Indeed, Hermann's
dedication was such that during this time when he was
rescuing other people and their families, his own was growing
as his wife gave birth to a son. These individual
acts of bravery were crucial in the initial hours and

(22:28):
days following the collapse of the levees. As time passed, though,
people were able to come together to create a system
to carry out these rescues in a more organized fashion.
As a dead large paddlewheel steamships came to serve as
a mothership for these rescue operations. They were essentially floating
home bases that pushed large barges capable of holding some
fifteen hundred people, while smaller, faster, more maneuverrable boats sent

(22:51):
off in all directions, reaching places the big boats couldn't
get to as they searched for and rescued people that
they then brought back to their motherships. To ensure the
success of these missions, these smaller boats often took with
them a mechanic who could repair the engines, and sometimes
even someone like a mailman who knew the region better
than most, which was vital not just in looking for

(23:11):
places where people might be, but in navigating around potential obstacles.
As keep in mind, this was a dangerous endeavor simply
because any number of impediments lurked just beneath the surface
of the water that could potentially wreck or capsize a boat,
since again, this wasn't some river or lake, this was
flooded land which was littered with stuff like stomps or
fence post or any number of other objects that would

(23:34):
be mundane and inconsequential under normal circumstances, but which now
presented the risk of death and destruction. Yet, despite such
dangerous these brave individuals still set off, sometimes following phone
lines to where people were stranded, because oftentimes the phone
still worked, which allowed people to call out to alert
others that they were trapped. Meanwhile, also aiding in this

(23:55):
search for stranded survivors were planes that flew overhead, acting
as spotters for the teams. In the speaking all of
these stranded survivors as banasty, cold and rain had been.
When the weather finally turned and started growing hotter, it
didn't exactly bring relief. Instead, it seemingly just made different
aspects of this disaster werese For example, the winners that
they were now surrounded by were littered with bodies. Some

(24:17):
were fum unfortunate people who had not escaped the oncoming flood,
while many hundreds of others were from animals who had
drowned in the disaster. Bodies of cows, mules, and any
number of other farm and wild animals then began swelling
up as a decomposed in the heat. Meanwhile, even as
these rescue efforts were being undertaken in the region affected
by the Mounds landing breakthrough elsewhere alone the Mississippi other

(24:40):
communities braced themselves fearing that they would be next. Louisiana
State University students, for example, instead of their normal classes,
would be trained how to operate outboard motors on boats,
so if and when the time came, they would be
prepared to aid in the rescue efforts. Meanwhile, concentration camps
were being set up on high ground in areas that
were anticipating breakthroughs of their own, so that way people

(25:02):
would have some place to go if and when the
levees failed, speaking of a determined fight would be waged
to keep the bioday glazed levee intact, because should it fail,
the other levees around it would go down as well,
submerging the Sugar Bowl region of Louisiana. Thousands then were
put to work piling sandbags higher and higher as they
just barely managed to stay ahead of the rising waters. Yet,

(25:24):
just as they thought they had won, Mother Nature had
one last card to play, as the last major storm
of the spring descended on the region, dumping an additional
eleven inches of rain into the area. And so on
the twelfth of May, the levee simply crumpled as hundreds
of millions of tons of water began pouring through the gap.
Now to understand the scope of this disaster, you have

(25:44):
to realize that the water issuing forth from the bioday
glaze crevice, whilst all spreading out over the land five
days later when it arrived in the town of Melville, Louisiana,
where the swallow water from the Mississippi collided with a
wall of water from the nearby Atchafalaya River, which had
just burst through its own levy earlier in the day,
a collision that, according to one resident in town, produced

(26:06):
the quote sound of a thousand freight trains. Indeed, the
force of these waters, which wore reportedly in some places
thirty feet or more high, smashing together, was apparently enough
to tear apart a steel railroad bridge. Meanwhile, elsewhere, just
as it looked like the waters had finally stopped arising,
and in some places it even looked like it was receding,
yet another floodcrest came rolling down the Mississippi, an event

(26:30):
that was especially heartbreaking for residents and places that had
initially been flooded in March and April, places like Missouri
and Arkansas where they had even felt safe to start
planting cotton. Now, though, as a new floodcrest rolled down
the river system, the axis water naturally came pouring through
these pre existing breeches to devastate the lands all over again. Ultimately,

(26:51):
and just the region around the Lower Mississippi alone, some
twenty seven thousand square miles would be flooded with as
much as thirty feet of water. This was land that
had been home to some nine hundred and thirty one
thousand people land, which remained in the state for months,
as it would not be until mid August, four months
since the first of the federal levies had failed, that
all the water would finally recede. Now, official counts put

(27:14):
the number of people killed in this disaster at two
hundred and forty six who drowned, with an additional two
hundred and fifty killed indirectly by these events. However, it
is generally believed that not only are these counts inaccurate,
but they are actually quite low. In fact, the head
of the National Safety Council would estimate that a thousand
deaths had occurred in the Yazoo Mississippi Delta region alone,

(27:36):
with seemingly many of the deaths not being counted being
the deaths of African Americans in particular. It also has
to be made clear that, even without major influxes of
additional what are, this massive stretch of land would remain
under water for months, which means the rebuilding efforts would
not be able to start in earnest until then. In
the meantime, something would have to be done to care

(27:56):
for and shelter these people. The small bit of good news, then,
was that the nation, following the Mounds lending breakthrough, finally
began to take true notice of what was happening. Next time,
then we will continue to document this ongoing disaster and
how the nation responded, but that Mike always will have
to remain a story for another time. Thank you for

(28:21):
listening to Distorted History. If you would like to help out,
please rate and review the podcasts and tell your friends
if you think they'll be interested. If you would like
ad free in early episodes, I set up such a
feed over at patreon dot com slash Distorted History. By
paying ten bucks a month, you will gain access to
the special ad free feed available on Spotify or likely
through your podcast app as long as it uses an

(28:42):
RSS feed. I will continue to post sources on kofee
and Twitter, though, as it's just a convenient place to
go to access that information regardless. Once again, thank you for.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Listening and until next time, is

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Ina